With no choice but to jolly well get on with it, I finally got my chapter and synopsis done today. The synopsis just needed updating to the new alternate history setting, and the chapter wasn't so hard after all. For one thing, I've shortened it by a scene.

Last night I printed out and packaged up my submissions for the conference - one for my workshop tutor Sally Spedding and another for agent James Wills. They'll go in the post today, in plenty of time for the conference deadline.

For the rest of this month I'm going to focus on 2YN, to keep my mind off fretting about the conference!

Catching up on May's 2YN assignments proved easier than I thought. Luckily they were for areas of world-building that I can lift straight from my knowledge of Greek and Roman culture, so there wasn't much thought or research required.

One element I've decided to include from previous stalled projects is that of a world with no horses or equivalent riding beasts. It's an idea that's intrigued me for a while, and also gives my slave-owning society an incentive to develop sandalpunk steam technology for use in transportation :)

I spent yesterday evening reading "Ancient Inventions", as research for 2YN. Having read a section describing Arnold Toynbee's speculations about what might have happened if Alexander hadn't died so young (a world-spanning Greek empire criss-crossed by railway lines, with Buddhism as its main religion!), I am now convinced that there will be steam locomotives in my sandalpunk world. Now I just have to resist the urge to adopt Toynbee's ideas wholesale and make this world alternate history like "Secret Theatre"!

Whilst visiting the Alphasmart forum on Flickr today I found out about a new Palm device, the Foleo, to be released this summer.

It's met with some scorn from IT fanboys, probably in large part because of an ill-conceived marketing campaign which gives the impression that it's nothing more than a large-screen/keyboard peripheral for a Treo smartphone. In fact it's a standalone device with full WiFi capability that happens to be able to sync easily with a Treo. More to the point, it's a Linux-based mobile word-processor with email and web capabilities, not much heavier than an Alphasmart Dana. Much as I like the Dana, its wireless capabilities are frankly rubbish: no decent web browser, slow email and connection decidedly flaky. Heck, if I had a portable device with a good browser, I might even update this blog more often!

For me the deciding factor will be how easily it can be customised to use Dvorak - unless it can, it's close but no cigar...

I've decided to use the upcoming release of the Foleo to spur me during these lethargic summer months, otherwise I'll get no writing done!

The plan is to reach the 50,000 word mark on the second draft of "Powderkeg Walk" before I allow myself to buy a Foleo. I'm aiming to get that done by the end of August if possible, otherwise by the end of September. The hardest part is going to be nailing Act One - once I have that sorted, the rest should flow fairly easily, I think (fingers crossed!).

Had a bit of a panic with the Dana in the last 48 hours - tried to sync it with my laptop and got nothing but error messages. I was starting to panic, thinking I would have to send it in for repair and thus not be able to take it to the conference.

After a lot of messing about with different cables and USB ports, emailing tech support, soft resetting and hard resetting, I finally twigged the problem. My laptop has the more recent version of the Palm Desktop installed, from the disk that came with the Z22, because I wiped OSX before I sent it in for repair. The Dana, on the other hand, needs an older version. Doh!

I've signed up for the FM word-count marathon again, and this time I'm having a lot more success. I've managed to rack up 2898 words of world-building and outline today, so that 5k pip is in sight!

First day of the conference, and things have gone pretty well so far. Two appointments with agents, dinner, and an evening workshop left my brain buzzing and sleep seemingly far away...

Woke at my usual early hour after a rather sleepless night, thanks to the thinness of the walls in the halls of residence, noisy doors and a rattling hot water pipe...

Onward and upward, though. And downward, and upward again - a campus on the side of a 1-in-3 hill is tough on the legs as well as the brain!